Category: Business

Adopting technology based solution becomes a recent mindset of businesses from small and midsized businesses to large sized enterprises in order to explore new horizons of their ventures. Mobile app becomes a one of the most popular trend adopted by businesses, today. Based on one survey, approximately 77% business holders appreciate the benefits of enterprise apps. Moreover, around 66% of them are looking for enhancing their investment in mobile app development. The market of enterprise apps is expected to grow in near future. The trend of micro-apps is also ascending as per recent trend. In addition, m-commerce has established a new standard as the world is progressing towards digitalization. The prime goal of businesses for mobile app development is to restructure, streamline and efficiently administrate their crucial business operations. Hence, for development of a successful mobile app, a business needs to find an expert and reliable mobile app development company who comprehend throughout need of their million dollar app idea and capable to turn it in a more productive manner. There are several criteria essential to comprehend as for small and medium sized businesses, the budget is a prime concern and they cannot take any risk in trash their valuable money and time by finding an inefficient app development company.

Important Criteria to Understand In Selecting the Right Mobile App Development Company:

Here we are discussing some major criteria that assist you with how to decide on selecting a mobile app development company for developing an innovative mobile application. Finding a company with a team of veteran professionals, including designers, developers, project managers and marketing experts helps in accomplish your purpose. A company having experienced and knowledgeable professionals with an understanding of latest technology trend as well as need of end-users can easily justify your project thoroughly.

Study the Portfolio:

Collect portfolio of different mobile app development companies in order to find a right company with abilities to accept complex challenges. You should make a study of their work, reviews of clients, social media interactions and work approach in order to make a short list of companies to choose a good one. You should discuss with the management and development team to understand their proficiency. On the other hand, you need to ensure about your app idea and budget for development. You need to choose a company that precisely matches with your budget limit with other significant criteria. Selecting a right platform for your app is also an important task. There are many companies who proffer services for developing all types of app. They can give right suggestion to choose the right platform to make your app profitable.

Comprehend the app development Process:

Understanding the complete life cycle of project development is also necessary while selecting any reliable mobile app development company. As on-time project delivery gives value to your investment, you need to ensure with your hiring company regarding the timely delivery of the project. Moreover, project updates at frequent interval of development cycle helps in understanding scope of the project for its further implement to add new features and make the app seamless.

Many mobile app development companies initially allures you with good promises in order to grab the project, but once they get a signing amount, they start finding reasons to escape from your work. Hence, it becomes necessary to know the work approaches of your hiring company and their punctuality in delivering work, completely. You should ensure with their list of clientele and reputation in the market.

Security Aspects:

As security is the prime concern for any application, it becomes necessary for mobile app developers to have expertise in developing an app with a higher level of security helps in protecting valuable data of customers. According to one survey report, majority of apps has problems even in basic test of security. Thus, you need to ensure with your hiring company for all such important aspects. Furthermore, you need to assure about privacy of your app concept as well as all information related to your project. Before handling project to any company, an agreement that includes all security terms, payment terms, delivery schedule, private policy and other important terms and condition become vital to overcome any misconception at a later stage.

When we talked about the technologies of mobile app, it becomes vital for mobile app developers not to depend on only outdated tools and techniques at the stage of development. They need right insight and vision to comprehend the modern trend of app market and how best they can serve out-of-box in order to make an app successful in real term. The developer team should comprise know-how to move ahead in the era of modern technology.

Conclusion:

Consequently, finding a big or small company for your need of mobile app development depends on various factors that you should think about. Make a list of advantages and disadvantages for your search and take the right decision based on your key priorities. When it comes to choosing the right company to develop a mobile app for your million dollar idea, an expertise with the latest mobile app technology trends, prompt and reliable service and support as well as ethical and transparent work approach play an important role.

When looking at the top mobile app marketplaces, you commonly see things like the Top Downloads page, Most Popular page, etc. However, we’re talking about a page. How many more pages are apps no one even knows they exist and will never meet success due to various reasons? Sadly, the answer is way too many to count. But of course just like in any other thing in life, success is achieved by those who put in the work and excel at the little details that make them stand out. Some apps fail because they’re bad, plain and simple, but there are also a lot of apps that have a lot of potential. The latter category fails often due to mistakes they make here and there without even realizing in time. In this article we are to learn what kind of mistakes app creators make under their own noses which ruin the final product.

How will your app make you money?

There are a lot of steps to take before getting there, but the final step is no doubt choosing a monetization system for your app. A common mistake made by app developers is that they don’t think of this aspect until very late into the project. You wouldn’t be the first one to be sitting idly with a finished app and no idea how to sell it. The result is a poorly applied business model that results in your app not meeting its monetary potential. Let’s break that down for a second. In app marketing, there are multiple ways in which an app can produce revenue and depending on what kind of app you create, the best one can change. It might be more efficient or profitable to release your app under a “free but featuring ads” model, or straight up charge a fixed amount for each download. Having two versions of the app, one free and one paid but with certain benefits is also a popular formula. This must be something that you evaluate and turn over in your head as you develop the app, not after you’ve finished it so that you hinder both the release date and income.

The way you manage your budget and how you make use of your resources will determine how the final product will look like as well as what impact it will have ( and on whom, for that matter). There are several cases of great apps that never see the light of day because the developers plan their budget in a very sloppy manner and so they run out of funds before development is complete. Another similar example is putting all your money into the app itself with no more funds left for promotion and marketing strategies. There is also a reverse situation where you have a killer marketing campaign for an app that you can’t actually build because, guess what? You spent your entire budget on a killer marketing campaign. Such things differentiate the success stories from the “almost there’s and “what if”s.

Rigidness and Unoriginality:

If your app focuses on doing only one thing, and that thing only, it might live out a short success followed by a sudden drop. No matter how terrific a function is, it eventually gets old, outdated, or outdone. This is why it is important to make sure that your app is capable of bringing multiple elements to the table. Sure, you might have sought to create an app that does one particular thing very well, and you’ve succeeded. But if you want to keep building on that success you need to expand your horizon and start thinking of new ways the app can serve your customers. Let’s keep looking here for a second, specifically at errors that occur in what apps provide. If you make an app that achieves the same purpose as other existing apps, you need to make sure you bring something new to the table. Often times people release apps that approach the same successful concepts as already popular apps, but not as well. This is a sure way to make sure that your time and effort are wasted.

Conclusion:

That being said, developing a successful app is never an easy task. There are a lot of elements that are out of your control such as current trends or user tendencies, but there are also lot aspects you can directly influence. Making sure you do everything in your power to succeed and that you avoid errors that can cost you a lot will prove decisive in the end.

Digital advertising has become a major component of modern day marketing strategies—and if it’s not part of your business strategy, it should be. Whether your business is B2B or B2C, by implementing digital advertisements correctly, you’ll be able to successfully grow your online presence, and ultimately foster more conversions and sales. Now more than ever, digital advertisements allow your company to have more visibility throughout a much wider audience. However, if your ads aren’t well thought out, you most likely won’t get the outcome you’re hoping for. Whether it be the design, channel, or messaging elements, every aspect of the advertisement needs to be taken into consideration for it to work in your favor. To determine the very best ways to create and implement digital ads, we’ve turned to experts across the digital advertising industry, and have consulted with our own thought-leaders from Blue Fountain Media, to create a collection of tips that will help any company get the most out of their campaigns. From the best channels, to the best converting content—we’ve got it covered. Take a look at these 10 tactics, and see if integrating them into your own marketing strategy can help your company get the digital advertising results you’re looking for:

1. Creative Elements:

Your business has visual elements that make it stand out from your competition. Use that to your advantage in your marketing efforts. Whether it is a logo, mascot, font, or color scheme, having it included can help make your brand recognizable. You want to catch the eye of the audience, but you also want to maintain their attention and have them remember your brand. Incorporating unique and creative visual elements into your ads is crucial to the success the ads will bring you. Sarah Maloy, Content Marketing Manager at Shutterstock points out that you want a variety of creative images, but they should be consistent:

“When advertising on social media, it’s important to refresh your creative often so that it is relevant and so that users aren’t seeing the same post more than once. When testing variations and trying out new campaigns, look for images that have a consistent aesthetic so that your overall social campaign will feel familiar, but not repetitive, to users who may come across more than one ad. Overall, you want to make sure your social ads tell a cohesive story, and that the image aligns with the copy, which aligns with the CTA or link content, which of course should align with your branding.”

Each platform used to market online provides you with a different value. You need to analyze which outlets you should invest more time and money into, and which ones are not as imperative. Some platforms that work really well for one company, yield little to no results for another. It is all very specific to your brand, and you need to plan your budget accordingly. Determining what each platform is going to do for your specific advertising efforts should be the basis for the decisions you make with your campaigns, explains Hitesh Sahni, Marketing Consultant at Smemark:

“It’s imperative to understand the value each channel offers. Search advertising platforms, such as Google Adwords, work best when there is a clear demand for your product or service, and you want to target people who search for your product or service online. Search advertising is less effective for a startup that has created a new and innovative product never before seen in the market. Or for something that most people buy at brick and mortar stores and rarely search online. In these cases, you want to create demand from scratch. That’s where Facebook fills the gap. Facebook users fill out their profile with demographic details and other interests. This means you can target people who are likely to be interested in your business, whether they are searching for your business or not.”

You may have ideas for what is going to work best for your audience based on past experience with your ads, but taking the time to conduct thorough research and have data to support your actions is important. You may anticipate that your customers will behave a certain way, when in fact they go in a completely different direction. It’s essential to be prepared for this ahead of time and use the information you collect from research to plan your marketing strategy. Elliot Simmonds explains this concept below:

“ A lot of people use sponsored posts and other paid advertising, and it seems that many are happy to simply pay the money and watch the views and clicks roll in – even if some of those clicks are from individuals tangential to the product or service they’re promoting. Most platforms allow you to specifically target your sponsored posts and ads, and my tip is to do so following a period (even if it’s only a short period) of actual research. Your gut instinct might tell you a lot about who your clients are, but you should also take the time to find out for yourself – which profiles of consumer spend the most? Who are the ones who return time and again? Where are more of your clients based?”

Understand the buyer journey and what you need to present them with at each stage of the process to more effectively reach users. There are so many detailed options when it comes to viewing buyer analytics. You can see each step a visitor takes throughout your website, how much time they spent on each page, and even what pages caused them to possibly leave. Use this information to cater your digital marketing to those audience members so that you can make the process simple for them, and beneficial for you. James Kirby, PPC Specialist at Blue Fountain Media, highlights the importance of this:

“Start targeting users who are near the bottom of the funnel. For instance, in-market audience targeting allows Google to observe user history to better understand where they are in their buying phase. This will then allow retailers to target potential customers who are further down the funnel and are close to making a purchase. Currently there are 492 different market audiences to reach. Targeting methods like this are often overlooked by marketers and retailers so it’s important to take advantage.”

-James Kirby, PPC Specialist, Blue Fountain Media

5. Know Your Target Audience:

Fully grasping who your audience is, and how to best market to them is critical. You need to know who you want your buyers to be before you try to market to them. This is an important step in any marketing strategy whether it be on or offline, and it is a clearly defined aspect of your brand that you can keep referring back to. Sean Gallahar, Social Media Director at i7 Marketing explains the importance of clearly defining your target audience when you’re beginning your digital advertising campaigns:

“When it comes to digital advertising it is important to remember that for any business to be effective, they need to know who their audience is, which social media sites their audience spend time, and then they have to make sure to be able to provide content for the platforms their audience spends time on. When it comes to marketing through social media, Facebook is definitely leading the race because they have the best options to define who you want to market to and you can set whatever budget you are comfortable with. Facebook also allows you to target your audience based on up to 10 interests of your audience. This is why it’s important to have a defined target audience, you have to know what they like to do and what they want so you know how to create content that will capture their attention.”

To see which efforts are working best, you need to be able to tie your data back to the direct result it produces. When you are marketing online, you are reaching a diverse group of people, and that needs to be taken into consideration when measuring your results. You need to look at what is promoting engagement with your company, versus what is actually driving conversions. To develop a reliable social media attribution strategy, Harpreet Singh, CEO and co-founder of Kvantum, says that a brand needs to consider these key factors:

“1. Your social audience is not a single undifferentiated blob of people trying to friend others or find deals. They can be divided and defined into distinct behavioral groups with distinct missions, when interacting with your brand.2. The social channels represent a living, breathing group of people voicing opinions and responding to world events. They are in constant flux. Developing a capability to monitor this in real time and responding to it with agility is critical to being relevant to the social conversation.3. Just because there are more likes or more shares does not mean that the consumer is going to walk into a store and buy. While there is some correlation, there are many other factors in play like paid or organic social, cross-channel effects, size of target audience, social interaction themes, competitive social media, etc. A brand needs to connect the social media metrics with hard metrics like sales, ROI, registrations and leads.”

According to a study from eMarkter, 80% of small and medium-sized businesses haven’t used ads for Facebook. Jayme Pretzloff, Director of Marketing for Wixon Jewelers, says that Facebook is a great advertising space for small businesses, and stresses the importance of exploring this channel:

“Facebook has allowed you to take word of mouth to a whole new level. Now, more than ever, recommendations from friends have a huge impact and can sway even the most cautious consumer. To do this, you have to get in front of your clients-past, present and future. We know that Facebook followings don’t happen overnight for businesses so how could we possibly assemble a tribe in a short period of time in an effort to jump start your social media presence? Facebook has a great advertising model in place that enables small businesses to advertise to very specific target markets very easily and without breaking the bank. Even with a modest investment, you can reach your clients and get them on board. Facebook can be a powerful advertising tool if used correctly. Make sure to try out some ads, test them out and figure out what is going to work for your organization.”

To reach your audience effectively, you need to have consistent messaging. This means making sure that your ads are integrated across various platforms and giving users the same message, regardless of the platform. We know each social media outlet has a different vibe and feel to it, so you need to take the time to get your digital efforts to match each site, while still maintaining a unique yet consistent voice for your brand. Adam O’Leary, President of Encite Marketing, details this idea:

“The best digital advertising tip we can share with business owners is to ensure that your campaign is integrated with your other marketing channels. An integrated marketing campaign will garner much better results than any single initiative. For example, Facebook Ads work really well on their own when promoting a sale or publicizing a new product, but it works much better when supporting another marketing channel such as email.”

The relatively new venture in digital advertising holds a lot of promise for marketers—especially those in the B2C space. It allows you to target customers in a whole new way based on their physical location, in the hopes of naturally guiding them to your business. Andrea Mocherman, VP of Marketing at Gravit8 Marketing explains how geo-fencing can be effective for a variety of businesses when it comes to driving sales:

“What is increasingly becoming more and more effective tool for marketers is utilizing geo-fencing in combination with digital advertising to engage consumers at the right time, with the right message to drive in-store traffic. These types of campaigns typically generate three times the amount of foot traffic and produce a 27 percent increase in sales on average. What makes geo-fencing so powerful for marketers is the ability to target consumers based on their interests and engage them by delivering offers that will push them down the path to purchase. Geo-fencing allows marketers to draw a virtual fence around any address or point of interest and send a notification when a customer crosses that line. Whether it’s a small business owner or a large retailer, they can use this technology to grab a customer’s attention before their competition does to deliver timely offers that will drive in-store traffic and ultimately revenue.”

Product listing ads should have all the elements that users want to see when they do a search. You don’t want potential customers to have to go and do more research at the risk of losing interest, so answer any questions they may have up front. Any information that could be beneficial to the purchase process, include it! Enhancing these ads will ensure that they stand out explains Monica Cabaniss, PPC Associate at Blue Fountain Media:

“Take the time to build a product feed that gives a detailed description of your products so that they can be presented well in PLA’s on Google, Bing and now Facebook. Pairing a product picture with the product description on a search results page will add visual appeal to the normal text ads.”

Ultimately, digital advertising can be the key to success for any company looking to market effectively to the appropriate audience. If you’re looking to enhance your tactics, and widen the scope of your current practices, try integrating these techniques into your digital marketing strategy. While employing these tips should help improve your overall ROI in the present and near future, remember to continuously be eager to learn about the changes and fluctuations in digital advertising, regardless of the platform or channel that you are on. Being proactive about it and keeping on top of trends and updated will set yourself apart from your competition.

As the owner of an ecommerce store, you have many major decisions to make that directly impact your company. What products will you carry? How will you determine your pricing? What shipping services will you use? All these and more are questions you need to answer before launching your site. But before you begin the process of designing your store – or selecting a web design agency to take on the project – you have to determine which content management system, or CMS, you want to use. And in when it comes to ecommerce, there are two major names to choose between: Drupal and Magento. In this post, I’ll discuss everything you need to know about Drupal and Magento so you can pick the right CMS for your site.

Advantages and disadvantages of Magento:

One of the most well-known ecommerce platforms on the market today is Magento. It’s often the go-to choice for business owners because of its wide range of functionalities. Here’s what you should know:

Advantages:

Ecommerce sites that run Magento can handle hundreds of thousands of products at a time and can even run several different stores at a time. This means that no matter how much your business grows, you’d never need to worry about upgrading to another platform. The platform is designed to be commerce-focused, and has a straightforward process for creating and managing product catalogs. You basically set up different product categories (ex. shirts, pants, accessories) and place your products within them. Magento also offers analysis, report, and product management systems to help users manage their inventories and reports. As an added bonus, Magento is SEO-friendly, meaning that it’s easy to optimize your product pages for search. And with the extensive support community on Magento’s site, there are a lot of people who can help if you run into any issues.

Disadvantages:

The tradeoff for Magento’s extensive capabilities is that it can place high demands on your server. This means that if you’re planning to use it for your site, you need to first make sure that your server can handle it. And although its ecommerce capabilities are strong, Magento’s CMS functionality isn’t the best. As a result, most site owners who use Magento only use it for the ecommerce sections of their site, and run the rest of their site on another CMS like WordPress.

Brands that use Magento:

If you’d like to see what an ecommerce site running on the platform looks like, you won’t have to search too hard. Many successful ecommerce brands rely on Magento, like Nike Australia, Rosetta Stone, Harper’s Bazaar, Volcom, Rebecca Minkoff, and Sierra Nevada Brewing company.

Advantages andDisadvantagesofDrupal:

Drupal is another well-known ecommerce platform, but also has the added functionality of a full CMS. Here’s what you should know:

Advantages:

Drupal is a comprehensive CMS and ecommerce platform, meaning that your entire site can run on it. Unlike Magento, which is typically integrated with another platform like WordPress, you can manage all of your pages in one central location. It’s also an extremely flexible platform, and virtually every aspect of your site, catalog, and product presentation is fully customizable. When you use Drupal, you begin with a much less defined setup and play a much bigger role in choosing the options you want.

Disdvantages:

Drupal is not compatible with other software, so if you have another CMS in place (like WordPress), you can’t integrate it into your site without some major changes. Some users also don’t like that it lacks a few features in its shopping cart, like discount codes and estimated shipping and tax. It’s also important to note that although many developers love the flexibility that Drupal allows, customizing your platform requires advanced coding knowledge. This means that it’s not necessarily a user-friendly choice for those who don’t have experience developing sites.

Brands that use Drupal:

Drupal also has an impressive client list, including Whitehouse.gov, NBC, Tesla, Harvard University, Timex, Weather.com, and the Dallas Cowboys.

Which one is right for you?

Ultimately, the CMS that’s right for you depends on what you’re looking for in an ecommerce platform. If you just want to add ecommerce functionality onto your existing site, Magento is a great choice. But if you’d rather do a complete overhaul to have your site running on one CMS, Drupal is your best bet. That being said, if you have an in-house developer, they should definitely be a key decision-maker in this process. Regardless of which platform you choose, you’ll need someone with coding experience to get your ecommerce functionality up and running. And if you don’t plan to work with an outside agency, learning either one of these platforms is a challenging task for even the best developer.

Ready to start designing your storefront?

If you’re considering launching or updating an ecommerce store, deciding between Drupal and Magento (as well as the many other options on the market) can be difficult. It’s worth investing some serious time in making the right choice, as it will ultimately play a huge role in the overall look and feel of your site. And if you’re looking for a developer, I encourage you to take a look at our CMS development. Whether you’re looking to build an entirely new site or add ecommerce functionality to your existing one, our experienced team of developers can also help you.

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About Voxill

Your business can benefit from our range of digital marketing services and E-Commerce Services, which we already supply to clients across the world. As an ambitious agency, we set ourselves big goals and will only work with companies when we believe we can make a tangible difference to their bottom line.